Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting

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Coordinates: 51°20′53″N 2°05′30″W / 51.3480°N 2.0918°W / 51.3480; -2.0918
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Seend Ironstone Quarry and Road Cutting (

Lower Greensand containing specimens of fauna not found elsewhere.[2]

Mining rights were leased just below the Bell Inn before 1856 where 10,000 tons of iron ore were mined. The quarried

town gas
. The works appear to have continued functioning into the 1960s.

History of Seend quarry and iron works

Early history

The antiquarian John Aubrey wrote that he discovered iron ore as early as 1666 when it rained so much that it washed away the sand from the ore and the later bright sun reflected on it. He described the ore field as the richest he had ever seen.[4] The smith could melt the ore in his forge, which wasn't possible with ore from the Forest of Dean. Aubrey says that the oak trees of Melksham forest, which once reached to the foot of the hill, were cut down in about 1634; there was thus not enough wood (for charcoal) to smelt it, and it remained unexploited until the 1850s.[5][6]

At the 1851

Tredegar Iron Company. The ore field underlay 179 acres of land, of which the village of Seend occupied 64.[4]

1856–1870

William Sarl of Cornhill, London, bid for and acquired leases in November 1856 on three parcels of land where the ore was quarried; a tramway was built from the quarry near Seend Cleeve to Seend railway station,[11] and the ore was transported to South Wales and the Black Country for smelting.[12]

Sarl determined to smelt the ore into pig iron on site, and a separate 'Great Western Iron Ore, Smelting, and Coal Company' was formed in 1857 to bring coking coal from

coke oven) was constructed at Seend.[12]

Sarl hoped to expand his operation with more blast furnaces, coke ovens and workers' housing. To raise capital a new enterprise, the Wiltshire Iron Company was formed in June 1861, with Samuel Blackwell as the general manager. The

Geological Survey of Great Britain stated in 1920 that 77,984 tons of brown hematite were raised between 1855 and 1861.[4] The 1861 Census shows the influx of a number of workers from outside the area, including men from Ireland and the Black Country to work here.[16] But the venture evidently failed and the company was wound up in 1864, although around 83,000 tons of ore were raised in 1865-66.[17]

1870–1900

A Glasgow firm, Messrs Malcolm and Company, took over in 1870 but was wound up in 1873. Later that year Richard Berridge, a partner in the London

Meux Brewery company acquired control of the works, but by 1876 activity at the Seend iron works appears to have ceased.[18] The Geological Survey stated in 1920 that 86,443 tons were quarried from 1871 to 1874.[4] The ironstone quarries continued to be worked intermittently: in 1884 complaints were received that Pelch Lane was being badly cut up by the constant haulage of iron ore down the narrow lane.[6] The iron works are marked as disused on a map published in 1888,[11] and the next year they were dismantled and the machinery sold off.[18] That same year Kelly's Directory stated "Iron ore is found here in abundance and until recently was largely worked."[6]

1905–1946

A firm based at Midsomer Norton, near Radstock, bought the property in 1905 and extracted ore for a number of years, with most of the output going to South Wales.[18] During the First World War, an overhead cable took ore down in large iron buckets to the goods yard at Seend station;[19] boys took free rides up the hill in the empty buckets.[6]

After around 1920, a new purpose was found for the iron ore:

calcined by the 'New Seend ironworks' to remove the earthy residues, and shipped to cities such as London, Liverpool, Birmingham and Swansea.[18] Exploitation was renewed between 1939 and 1945, and in 1953 was carried on by the Westbury and Seend Ore & Oxide Co. Ltd. Iron oxide was also used for making paint.[4] The quarry continued to be worked until the 1960s.[18][6]

Iron ore analysis

The iron ore quarried at Seend is a

Lower Cretaceous. This geological layer was formerly well-known for its ores found in Kent and Surrey which had been the basis of the Wealden iron industry since earliest times. But the scarcity of timber to make charcoal for smelting, allied with the introduction of coke in other regions brought an end to production by the late 18th century. The only other ore of the Lower Cretaceous is the Claxby Ironstone, found in Lincolnshire.[20]

An analysis of the Seend ore collected by Samuel Blackwell and shown at the 1851 Great Exhibition includes the following:

"No. 13. The specimen much resembled...the yellowish brown varieties of Northamptonshire ore, and was from the outcrop, where it had been exposed to atmospheric oxidation. It is a highly siliceous, earthy, hydrated sesquioxide of iron [an older term for brown hematite or limonite]"[21]

Blackwell, who was much involved in the Seend quarry and ironworks, had explored the

Northampton Sand shortly before the 1851 Exhibition and had discovered an extensive deposit of similar brown hematite which was shipped for smelting to South Staffordshire, Derbyshire and South Wales.[22]

A later analysis of the Seend ironstone by J. D Kendall includes the following remarks:

In Seend the Lower Greensand rests on the
silica dusted with 'hydrated peroxide of iron' [perhaps Goethite, FeO(OH), Iron(III) oxide-hydroxide].[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Map of the SSSI". MAGIC. Natural England. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
  2. ^ "Seend Ironstone Quarry & Road Cutting" (PDF). Natural England. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  3. ^ "Seend Iron Works" (PDF). Wiltshire OPC Project. 2013. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e Pugh & Crittall 1953, pp. 91–121.
  5. ^ Aubrey 1862, pp. 302–3.
  6. ^ a b c d e "Seend". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council. Retrieved 13 February 2023.
  7. ^ "Samuel Holden Blackwell (1816-1868)". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 28 February 2021..
  8. ^ "Samuel Blackwell". West Somerset Mineral Line Association. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  9. ^ Day 1979, pp. 29–30.
  10. ^ Percy 1864, pp. 209, 225–6.
  11. ^ a b "Ordnance Survey six-inch map: Wiltshire Sheet XXXIII". National Library of Scotland. 1888. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
  12. ^ a b c Day 1979, p. 30.
  13. ^ Day 1979, p. 31.
  14. ^ Day 1979, pp. 33, 35.
  15. ^ "Martin Baldwin (1788-1872)". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 28 February 2021..
  16. ^ Day 1979, p. 38.
  17. ^ Day 1979, p. 35.
  18. ^ a b c d e Day 1979, p. 36.
  19. ^ "Ordnance Survey six-inch map: Wiltshire Sheet XXXIII.SE". National Library of Scotland. 1926. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
  20. ^ a b Kendall 1893, pp. 250–251.
  21. ^ Percy 1864, table on p. 209, text pp. 225-6.
  22. ^ Percy 1864, pp. 225–6.

Sources

51°20′53″N 2°05′30″W / 51.3480°N 2.0918°W / 51.3480; -2.0918

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